


Ain't Nobody Gonna Love Me Like The Devil Do

by bodiddleydarn



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:06:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodiddleydarn/pseuds/bodiddleydarn
Summary: I used to get paid to write porn (under a pseudonym, of course.) This is a concept story that never made it into an issue, but I liked it so much, I kept the original file.It's about a guy named Kevin who's being haunted by a sexually possessive demon.Sounds fun, right?





	Ain't Nobody Gonna Love Me Like The Devil Do

He’s taking a risk, being out like this-- but Kevin is desperate. He’s been holed up in his shitty apartment for days, for weeks; too terrified of losing himself and possibly hurting someone if he ever went out. The embarrassment alone from the threat of being seen so vulnerable was often worse than his fear of being a danger.

He’d picked the park for a reason. He needed to get out, at least for a short while. And, if he has an… _episode_ out here, at least there would be space for him to struggle through a fit. Hopefully, any strangers around might only be frightened instead of injured. 

_(The image of Mr Truce suddenly swam up inside his head; the old landlord’s dead face sallow and twisted in a horrible rictus, his eyes glassy and vacant. Kevin hadn’t been able to sleep for three days from memory of that frozen, accusing gaze staring at him whenever he closed his eyes._

_The taunting laughter echoed from somewhere in the back of Kevin’s skull didn’t help matters much, either.)_

It was a beautiful day. Joggers, parents with shouting children and packed strollers, teenagers throwing balls or lying on blankets in the sun. A middle-aged man was letting his dog sniff around the trees planted by Kevin’s chosen bench, and both dog and man were pleasantly, dutifully ignoring him. Squirrels chattering in branches overhead mixed annoyingly with birdsong. The atmosphere was a din of activity.

It was perfect.

_[Oh, Kevin.]_

The voice sent a flinch snapping through his chest. 

Kevin leaned forward on his elbows, bracing them against his closed knees, and clutched his hands to his temples. He squeezed fingertips into his hair, deliberately aggravating the roots. 

The wincing sting wasn’t enough, but it served as a temporary ground-- a painful, undeniable reminder that _Kevin_ was real.

_[Do you really think some pretty birdies are enough to drown me out?]_

And the fucker talking to him was not.

…Maybe.

Kevin stared down at the dirt before the bench; forced himself to focus without blinking at a small rock stood by a dying clump of grass. 

The rock was grey. The rock was very grey. It cast an inch-long shadow to the left. It had six uneven, jagged sides. It was flecked with silver--

 _[Or some stupid brats screaming? Or some moron talking too goddamn loud on their iPhone? **Or the fact that you think using present focus to describe a fucking rock will make me go away?]**_

Kevin shut his eyes with a squeeze, dropping all thoughts of the rock while a reminder of past pain lanced a ghostly ache beneath the seams of his skull. 

_[Haven’t we been down this road before, precious?]_ The hard stab of the voice’s echo suddenly dropped its venom, replacing with an affected, honeyed sweetness. _[Darling boy. You’ll only get a headache.]_

“Please shut up,” Kevin whispered. 

_[Oh, but you’d miss my dulcet tones, sweet Kevin.]_

The voice sounded _tangible_ , now. Interrupted by nearby ambiance. Kevin swore he could feel a new, bodily kind of awareness coming from his right-- Like someone had sat down beside him on the bench.

He didn’t dare open his eyes to check.

The voice made a tutting sound against teeth, next to his ear. A prickled bloom of heat sent the skin across Kevin’s back and right arm contracting with fright as he felt a soft huff of air hit the hair at his nape. 

_[This won’t do,]_ the voice said. It almost sounded like a mourning. _[Oh, Kevin, you don’t belong out here. Can’t you see how uncomfortable you are?]_

The white noise of birds and children and _other people_ became a roar, pounding inside his ears, reverberating within his skull. Without opening his eyes, Kevin quickly delved a hand into his pocket and pulled out the rosary. He looped the majority of its length around his wrist and brought it to his lips, pressing an anxious kiss to the silver crucifix. He thumbed a couple of beads as his lips tried to mutter in prayer. 

But, he couldn’t make his voice go any higher than a tremulous, thready whisper. It were as though the air in his throat was being slowly leaked away. 

A twist of panic tightened in his gut as Kevin felt his tongue go heavy and numb despite the shouting commands he sent from his brain. 

A pair of pigeons cooed at crumbs on the ground around the ends of his shoes. Someone rolled by on a skateboard, blasting music from a radio at their hip. A dog barked. 

There was the touch of a warm hand carding through his hair, over his crown, and down the back of his neck as the voice crooned heat into the shell of his ear: _[I know what will calm you down, Kev.]_

The touch dipped below the collar of his shirt and Kevin immediately jerked away from the sensation and snapped his eyes open. He moved his gaze wildly over the empty space to his right, heart hammering in his ribs as his breaths came out in pants. Absently, he worried the pads of his fingers over the hard silver fasteners between the rosary’s purple beads.

The weather was exceptional-- warm and sunny. But a strange chill climbed up Kevin’s back and spread freezing fingers over his skin. Every muscle in his body seemed to tighten, stiffening with fear; like a cornered animal trying to hide in plain sight.

With horror, Kevin watched frigid clouds of white puff in front of his mouth, hitting coldly against the chapped cracks of his lips at the same time that a man, dripping with sweat and flushed red from exertion and sun, loped past his bench. 

The invisible touch returned; dragging a sharp nail over the hollow of his throat and pressing a firm, sliding palm from around his hip towards his crotch, the same voice whispered: _[I know what you like, Keeevin. I’ve seen how you really feel.]_

Kevin bit his bottom lip, trembling in place. He peeled tiny strips of skin with his teeth until a raw burn was felt and immediately, he pressed the point of a tooth into the little wound, trying to focus again on the sensation of pain.

When a strong grip grabbed at him through his jeans, the squeeze nearly violent in its accuracy, Kevin yelped and jerked to stand, the unwanted touches and the unseasonable cold falling away as he moved his feet. He was panting, loud and obvious with how air clawed through his throat and whined inside his mouth. 

A pair of old women sitting on the next bench to his left stared at Kevin with naked unease. When they started whispering to each other, shooting wary glances his way, the voice began to cackle again inside Kevin’s head.

 _[I told you! You can’t go anywhere! You shouldn’t be out here. Take us back to your apartment, sweet boy,]_ the voice ordered, condescending and singsong, _[and let me hold you down for a little while.]_

Kevin swallowed, a hard roll with the back of his tongue. 

He looked over at the old women on the next bench, catching their eyes for a guilty second before his own went wide.

They looked dead-- bloated and discolored, eyes gone milky and rotten. 

_[Now, take us baaaack…]_ the voice crooned. _[Or some kid’s going to grandma’s funeral instead of her house, this weekend.]_

Kevin made a strangled scream and flailed, running out of the park. 

He skittered across the intersection, chest heaving with blind panic as he narrowly missed the grille of a taxi, its breaks squealing loud as he ran in front of it. He could hear the driver screaming obscenities at his back, only just muffled by the overwhelming laughter of the voice.

His apartment was only six blocks away, but the sidewalks were packed with mid-day foot-traffic. Kevin plowed through crowds of cursing, jostled strangers like a man hunted. The accuracy of that description was too unsettling for words.

He had no time to wait for crosswalks, and a part of him begged for god to cut the brakes of a car, _any_ car, as he dashed into the streets. But the most that happened was a fender bender on the avenue before his neighborhood-- Kevin watching as a sedan that swerved to miss his wild sprint clipped the front panel of a truck turning after the light. 

Kevin should have known his pleas would go unanswered. They always did.

The demon that haunted his every thought was proof enough.

Kevin stumbled-- In the faint reflection of a storefront, he saw the disembodied outline of an awful creature, dark and menacing, with a mouth that moved in time to the taunting, gleeful laughter clattering like a steel ball within his head. 

Whipping his face away from the glass, Kevin pushed hard with his feet to run the remaining distance to the door to his building, but slammed into someone. 

It was the 24-hour bodega owner from the store on the corner-- Kennedy, the nice Nigerian man who didn’t ask questions when Kevin came in sometimes, always at strange hours. 

Kennedy’s box went flying, spilling chip packages across the pavement, a few of which crunched under Kevin’s nervous, overcorrecting steps as he floundered. The bodega owner started to shout, instantly becoming angry, before he recognized the other person. 

Rage immediately melted into concern as Kennedy’s hands went to Kevin’s shoulders, holding him steady before the boy could topple over. 

The young man tried to shy away from the advance of Kennedy’s palms like a spooked horse.

“Kevin?” The taller man asked, “Kevin, are you sick?” 

The weird guy from the walk-up looked like he was about to either collapse, or start screaming and never stop. He usually came into the store looking mildly uncomfortable, so the pinching around his eyebrows didn’t call for too much concern.

But now, Kevin’s face was pale and wild-eyed, leagues in difference from the quiet upset he often wore in Kennedy’s bodega. He was sweating, clammy with nervousness, and his arms tensed again and again, like he couldn’t decide between lashing out, and bolting away. 

He seemed absolutely terrified.

Kennedy frowned. “Kevin? Should I call 911?”

_[If god won’t listen, what makes you think other humans could do something?]_

Kevin blinked, staring at Kennedy. 

_[It’s going to take a lot more than emergency services to save someone like you, Kevin.]_

The kind, angular features of the grocer suddenly morphed into a threatening caricature; red-eyed with a wide, monstrous mouth filled with too many teeth that seemed to gleam far too close to Kevin. 

Kevin yanked himself out of Kennedy’s gentle grip with a choked “Sorry,” and ran into his building, making distressed little sounds each time he exhaled as he climbed the stairs, listening to the demon screech with joy at its trick. 

When he reached his door, Kevin gave a weak, relieved groan and fumbled for his keys, pulling them from his pants. 

His fingers were shaking so bad that he dropped his keyring twice, finally gripping the correct key towards the lock, but he moved it with too much force-- the end scraped against the polished steel a few times in twitching desperation before successfully slotting in, and being turned hurriedly. 

He moved inside his apartment and threw the deadbolt behind him.

 _[Well, now! That wasn’t so bad, Kev, now was it?]_ The demon’s voice commented. _[Home sweet home.]_

Kevin moved to stop in the middle of his front room, still panting; still trembling with a glaring sensation of **not being safe**.

 _[You’ve got everything you need here, precious,]_ the demon hummed. _[A way to work, a way to call for food; indoor plumbing.]_

His eyes roved with the anxiety of the trapped. He didn’t have much: a couch, a coffee table, a bookcase-- All of it mismatched, stained, or held together with tape. The walls were bare; any pictures that got hung would eventually find themselves dashed to pieces on the floor, even when nailed. Physics weren’t a match for something like petty, supernatural rage.

 _[And, of coooourse…]_

That voice was back to curling, audibly quirking upwards with a grin. The sound made Kevin’s skin crawl. 

When his hands shook, he was reminded of the rosary still looped around his wrist. The cold metal of the cross tapped gently against his thumb. 

Kevin took it into his palm, curled his fingers around the dulled points.

The phantom touch returned to the back of his neck-- Squeezing, bolder now that Kevin was alone, willingly sequestered. The demon crooned: _[You’ve got me, Keeevin.]_

Kevin’s gaze immediately sought out and found the iron crucifix hanging in the corner kitchen. While he’d given up on putting any framed photos back on the walls… He couldn’t bring himself to stop returning the Jesus to its rusted mount over the counter.

_[I’m not going anywhere this time.]_

_‘Like hell, you aren’t.’_

Something jumped suddenly, into his chest-- an odd spark of defiance, the righteous kind of stubborn that he hadn’t felt himself make in years. 

Maybe it would be today. Maybe it would finally happen, today.

Working quickly, Kevin went to his knees and sat on his heels, toes bending inside his shoes. He unwrapped the rosary from his wrist and wound it appropriately between his palms, weaving his fingers with the beads--

_[What the fuck are you doing?]_

\--and bringing them up to his lips, kissing the amulet of the Blessed Mother--

 _[Kevin…]_ The demon’s voice was a growl, now, a rumbled insistence that pressed with warning against the interior curves of his temples. _[Don’t start that shit again.]_

\--before finally holding the first bead on the pendant, strung before the image of The Son; under his right thumb.

Kevin’s lips parted as he inhaled. The words were right there, waiting on his tongue, known and ready as they hadn’t been in the park… but still, he paused; holding air in his lungs.

The voice of the demon was silent. Waiting.

With one last glance at the crucifix hanging in the kitchen, Kevin exhaled: “Our Father, who…”

His gut went tight. It wasn’t his doing.

Licking his lips, ignoring his renewed shake, he started again: “Our Father--” 

Kevin shuddered at the low, purring laughter that sounded like an echo in a tomb. “Our F-Father, who art--”

 _[You’re doing this on purpose,]_ the demon teased. _[Pretty Kevin-- You know how much I like you on your knees.]_

Kevin’s breath left him in a quake, heartbeat picking back up. The sudden flare of brave defiance was already rapidly deserting him, leaving behind the fear of his conditioned norm. 

“H-hallowed b-be--” 

A few of his books leapt from their places on the bookshelf, landing open and ugly on the rug. That bone-chilling cold from the park bench fell over the room now, sending Kevin’s shallow gasps clouding before his face, stinging his nose and his clenching fingertips. 

The sight of frost spidering across a sunny windowpane spurred his tongue. “Be Thy n-name--”

 _[After all this time, you still haven’t asked me my name,]_ the demon said. _[How rude, Kevin. Tut, tut. So rude. You should be punished.]_

Invisible hands moved over his back and Kevin flinched forward into a crouch. He shut his eyes and pressed the freezing medallion of the rosary to his forehead, rocking himself slightly. “Thy king-- Thy k-kingdom come, thy w-will be done--”

A foul, familiar smell, like meat gone bad began to permeate the air, and the lights overhead started to flicker. Even the undeniable brightness of the sun outside seemed to dim, as though slowly being squeezed of life. 

Kevin saw the lights change from behind his eyelids and couldn’t stop the terrified whine that left his mouth, an animal sound of fear that matched his full-body tremblings. 

The touch from his back suddenly snatched into Kevin’s hair, yanking his head up and away from his knees; he couldn’t stop his pitiful yelp. _[I like to think you’re kneeling for me, sweet boy,]_ the demon told. 

The unseen fingers in his hair changed to feel like claws as Kevin heard a crackling of glass come from the window and a ripping from behind him, on the couch. A roaring bang, like something large being dropped, shook the floor and sent the stuffing of his couch pillows flying into the air. The off-white plush feathered down to the floor like snow, matching the frigid atmosphere the demon created.

Kevin cried out, weak and tenuous: “On earth, a-as it is in, in Heaven--”

 _[What a shit place, why would you want to go there?]_ Kevin smelled breath, hot and acrid, huff over his face from nothing in front of him. 

He flinched, despite himself. The demon had scared him with worse, but it never got easier. 

_[Stay with me, **precious**.]_ The demon’s voice ordered, clear with its mocking. _[Don’t I make everything interesting?]_

“--g-give us t-this day, our daily b-bread--”

Phantom fingers left his hair only to dip and tug at the waistband of his jeans, snapping the elastic hem of his underwear. Kevin suddenly could not seem to wriggle away. 

_[Oh, I’ll give you something much, muuuch better than bread, little boy.]_

Kevin finally scrambled to his feet, rolling his hands over and over again on the rosary, stuttering almost too unintelligibly to finish the prayer. 

There was an insistent pulling on his pant leg; an unnatural raising of his shirt, exposing a flash of white, chilled belly before Kevin stumbled backwards, tripping over the coffee table with a wail. The tendons of his ankles and his bottom ached with the force of the fall. 

“A-and, a-a-nd--”

 _[Come on, precious,]_ the demon’s voice goaded. _[Finish your little poem for me.]_

“A-and forgive u-us our, our trespasses,” Kevin said, autopilot rote. “And those who… Who trespass a-against us--”

 _[Hope you’re not meaning me!]_

The demon’s breath was back on his face, and its voice sounded in front of him and inside his skull. The invisible touches swiped firm up his thighs. _[I’ve been here for too long to still be a stranger to you, Kev.]_

“And lea--lead us not, not, not--”

 _[You can’t get this part out, can you? Nooo, too close to home,]_ the demon mused, _[a blow too low, Kevy-Kev. What’s your Heavenly Daddy Disappointment done for you, hmm? I’m still here.]_

He _**hated** _ when the beast was right. The line about temptation just would not leave his throat. Most of Kevin suspected the demon of having a hand in the problem. 

He skipped it, tried: “Deliver us, deliv--” 

_[I’m still heeere, darling. I’m not going anywhere.]_

Kevin was pushed to the floor and flattened on his back as he felt an invisible weight settle over him completely. It parted his thighs in a V, fitting between with challenging pretense. 

A grip went to his throat; a solid, suggestive touch that didn’t clench, but still wordlessly commanded him to stop praying, stop talking-- _stop, give in, submit. Obey._

The weight pushed lower, a deliberate rolling against his pelvis that drew a wretched keen from Kevin’s mouth.

The floorboards were icy through the thin cotton of his button-up. “F-from…” 

_[Dooon’t, Keviiiin…]_

Growling. Threatening. The sound reverberated in his brain like traffic, like a car accident; overwhelming with a barely-hidden promise of danger.

Weak, barely above a whisper, Kevin continued: “From evil--”

_[I’LL FUCK YOU HARD, KEVIN. I’LL SLAM MYSELF SO DEEP IN YOUR ASS, YOU WON’T REMEMBER HOW TO SAY YOUR STUPID, SHITTY PRAYERS. I’LL RUIN YOU!]_

His throat was immediately constricted and his lungs went flat. 

Kevin spasmed, struggling recklessly against the invisible weight. His hands clawed at his throat, found nothing besides his own skin.

Black spots started to dot his vision as his body screamed for him to breathe.

After a handful of seconds that felt far too long, the weight and the grip were gone. Kevin lurched upright, wheezing as his lungs inflated too quickly. 

But the release was short lived, for each imperious threat that the demon had made before suddenly blared together, shouting and howling over one another inside his head, and accompanied by a pounding, inhuman screeching. 

Kevin curled forward, his forehead pressed onto the floor as he clasped his palms uselessly over his ears; wailing. 

The sound was _excruciating_ , relentless and punishing in its strength that had his brain throbbing within his skull and his blood feeling like fire coursing under his skin. Kevin combed his arched fingers over his head, nails digging painfully into his scalp. He could feel his body tightening, contracting mercilessly as it was taxed.

He didn’t want to survive this. He didn’t want to survive this-- only to have to live through it later. 

Not again.

And then, as instantly as it had come, the storm of sound receded from his head. The echoing overlap of hissing, vile voices petered off.

The cold that had been suffocating the apartment slowly lifted; light returned to the window. Kevin heard nothing.

The tension in his bones released like a snapped wire, and Kevin seemed to sag into himself. Where adrenalized fear had once burned a sick, hollow exhaustion was left behind. 

He can’t help the relax of his posture-- the slipping fall, over onto his side, back again on the floor. 

Kevin feels the sensation of a hand back on his face-- but this time, the phantom touch is gentled, kind in its stroke over his forehead and down around his jaw, massaging delicately into the notches of nerves on his cranium beneath his flesh. He’s _almost_ too out of it to realize what he’s doing, but there’s enough awareness still flickering to send a mild twist of revulsion in his middle when Kevin recognizes himself feeling grateful, feeling _comforted_ by the oddly consoling gesture.

He leans his face into the unseen hand, keeping his eyes closed. At his unconscious response, the touch softens into a soothing circuit of pets; praising his acceptance of the touch, no matter how dubious his consent. 

He whimpers. 

_[Now, there’s a good boy,]_ The demon purred, low and quiet at the back of his mind. _[There’s a good boy.]_

He’s so tired.

_[My good boy.]_

::

He can’t remember when it wasn’t with him. He knows it wasn’t, once, or else the knowledge, the fear of its presence wouldn’t still be tormenting him with such potency. 

But the memories of when the presence-- the _**demon** _ \--would disappear from his head were becoming very distant, the time between absences yawning wider and wider between past, blessed days of quiet, and the increased torture of his present.

The past nine months have been the worst. 

And the past four weeks have been _hell_. 

When Kevin pulls himself up from the floor, he lingers in a splayed-leg sit, still feeling drained and something like dumb all over. The apartment is warm, all traces of supernatural cold gone, but his fingers tingle with the memory of exposure. 

He snuffles an index finger beneath his nose, blinking a few times. Though quiet (and apparently currently… _elsewhere_ ), prior experience served to note that it was never a good idea to cry where the demon could “see” him. 

The satanically-charged playground abuse was bad enough, but Kevin would rather suffer whatever bruising cruelty the demon did to his body than listen to the mocking, maddening insults that liked to whisper inside his head.

Using the coffee table as leverage, Kevin climbs to his feet and toes off his shoes. His sneakers flop onto the rug, upsetting small clouds of pillow stuffing to lift in the air, before settling back down. He spends a flat second standing and staring, as though finally realizing the new mess he’d have to clean.

Kevin spent the better part of the afternoon tidying his apartment. The books were no worse for wear, and there was a long crack in the window, but the majority of the demon’s energy had been focused on Kevin this time around. 

He managed to salvage one of his pillows by sealing it up again, using duct tape, but the others were too shredded to keep. They were stuffed into a trashbag and set by the door.

A rumble came from his stomach. Kevin idly scratched at his middle, padding softly onto the faded linoleum of the kitchenette. The thought of leftovers elicited another gurgle from his empty stomach as he reached out to pull open the fridge--

The gurgle recoiled into a disgusted twist as Kevin stumbled back, coughing into his elbow against the smell of spoiled food. When he could breathe, through the thin cotton of his shirtsleeve, Kevin slapped a hand for the kitchen fan as he leaned over the sink to pull up the window.

 _Everything_ inside the refrigerator was rotten. Mind, there wasn’t much but what there _was_ , was discolored and reeking. Even the two condiment bottles for ketchup and mustard were uncapped, and ringed with green slime-- as though forced open by fermenting gas.

Kevin leaned against the sink and scrubbed his hands over his face, pausing with his palms covering it completely as he breathed in and out for a few seconds. 

_So_ annoying.

He spent the next hour dumping the contents of his fridge (the bag joining the first to stand by the door) and scrubbing out the shelves with a generous finger of bleach. 

Seriously, why? Kevin angrily tossed gloves and rag into his sink and dried his hands. What was the point of this? Spoiling his food. _Why_ spoil his food? That was a “first month” type of haunting happening. The demon had been darkening the corners of his well-tested mind for ten years, now. A _decade_. 

A decade of being called crazy by his family, of learning to put up with screaming night-terrors and of forgetting what real, non-possessed sleep felt like without the reality-warping bullshit of a petty-assed demon blending waking hallucinations with dreams. 

A decade of progressively more frequent “visits” inflicted by some unholy supernatural malice that seemed to live for nothing but Kevin’s gaslit self-doubt, shame, and emotional instability. When the demon came to him, Kevin was sixteen. He’s been dealing with this unholy nonsense since before he could vote.

 _Spoil his food?_ That was supposed to frighten him _**now?**_

After what he just went through in the living room? 

Kevin called in an order for take-away Chinese and spent the wait walking his garbage down the hall to the chute. 

He was already quite used to his life’s… external instability. Day-old food going off without warning, furniture moving on its own, shadows in his periphery, strange impressions on his bathroom mirror when fogged up by the shower: Those were normalized facets of his life. Those were old news. Deranged, minor (and by now, occasional) inconveniences, yes-- but they were still better than feeling someone else moving around inside his head. 

He didn’t have a bad childhood. His parents were devout Catholics who had cherished their child. Kevin was baptized in the Church, completed his Confirmation, and attended mass every Sunday. He followed the rituals with a complacent, dutiful willingness. He _believed_. He had liked when he believed.

But the demon’s arrival changed everything.

His mother had called him a liar. His father, and their priest-- both had urged Kevin to give up his “attention-seeking charade” because, _of course_ , the demon that had picked Kevin wasn’t so vain as to fling a chair across the room or make his head spin around on his shoulders when Kevin had actually needed it to.

Whatever awful bat that had taken up residence in his belfry was undeniably intelligent. It knew not to validate the claims of its host. 

Kevin hadn’t had true contact with another person in over a year. The local delivery guys recognized him, and Kennedy was kind, but--

…But Kevin was alone.

When Kevin was alone, when he didn’t leave the apartment, the demon was… It was almost something like _kind_. Courteous. 

Sometimes Kevin caught himself actually forgetting he was basically talking aloud to himself in an empty flat and enjoying the conversations. Though still twinged with insults and uncomfortable sexual candor, the demon’s voice would be softened in Kevin’s head, and it would actually let Kevin reply.

(Kevin found he actively _preferred_ that version of his mental squatter.)

By the time that Kevin had received and finished his take-away, the demon was still “gone”. Kevin took the opportunity to bathe, and surf the internet.

When he realized he’d wandered over onto a site for believers of demon possession, and was mindlessly scrolling through its forum’s threads, Kevin shut down his laptop and crawled into his bed. The fatigue from the “episode” in the other room caught back up with him as he relaxed onto his side. 

His hands were limp and heavy on the mattress, next to the pillow, and his legs bent comfortably. 

For a brief moment, he entertained the idea of rolling onto his back and masturbating. The demon didn’t seem to be coming back anytime soon, and it was rare nowadays that Kevin got any real privacy (if his libido decided to work at all.)

His morning shower wasn’t the haven it had once been, when he was a teenager. If they gave out medals for such a thing, Kevin would be layered in gold for winning again and again in the category “How To Discreetly Achieve Orgasm Whilst Ignoring The Demonic Commentary Inside One’s Head”. (If it wasn’t criticizing the sight of his cock, it was trying to grope him.)

Sighing, Kevin did shift over onto his back, but his hands stayed on top of the blanket.

When he left the church, the separation had been necessary. For saving his sanity, for saving what was left of the crumbling relationship between his family and himself; it had even felt like it was necessary for saving his soul.

_(Back then, Kevin had felt so sure that his soul could still be saved. God tested all of his children; that’s what he’d been taught. Even when the demon had sneered and mocked his stubborn adherence, Kevin had kept the faith. God tested all of his children. God didn’t give anything they weren’t made to handle._

_Now-- Now, he’s not so sure.)_

Dropping the rituals and breaking habit of weekly communion had been surprisingly _easy_. He’d just moved out, and learned how to sleep in on Sundays. But the drummed-in guilt about sin, about his body, about sinful desires-- Those were harder to shake. Most still lingered, despite the reality of the lewd monster living in his head. 

Despite how irrevocably sinful and damned Kevin already felt, the very idea of touching himself sent a stab of shame that dug deeper than the defeated powerlessness he got whenever the demon made its presence known.

He sighed, rolling over. He was too tired, anyways. 

His bedroom seemed tomb-silent in the dark. Silence seemed to echo in the place where the demon usually was. Not for the first time,

Kevin was reminded how lonely his life had truly become.

Another thing which occurred, when Kevin didn’t leave the apartment for a while, was that the invisible touches-- the _demon’s_ touch --would often find their way to his temples at night, and the phantom hand would stroke through his hair until he fell asleep.

The demon’s absence was suddenly most obvious to Kevin not in the silence, or the lack of strange (predictable) noises; but in the lack of _petting_.

As he drifted off, Kevin thought: _‘God, I am so fucked up.’_

::

  
The duvet was exactly where it had been when he’d gone to sleep… which was strange.

Kevin blinked at the opposite wall as he slowly came to his senses. 

_‘…The demon’s still gone?’_

He levered himself up, pushing his blanket back as he sat. Kevin consciously probed around inside his mind, finding nothing except a lone, expected awareness of himself. That was surprising. 

The apartment, and his bedroom, were quiet. He heard nothing beyond his own breathing. (That was even _more_ surprising.)

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Kevin stood from his bed and yawned, starting to shuffle towards the kitchen.

Last night, he’d slept-- Well, he’d _slept_. Without interruptions, which was a first in he didn’t know how long. He didn’t even remember his dreams… not very well, at least.

Finding the coffeemaker, Kevin furrowed his brows as he felt a hot flush spread on his cheeks and upper chest when he tried to mentally focus on the amorphous recollection of what he had dreamt ( _if_ he’d dreamt at all.) His tongue darted out to lick his lips and his throat reflexively swallowed, seemingly of their own volition. A warm lurch pulsed in the soft center of his pelvis, answered by his cock with an interested twitching against the fly seam of his briefs.

Try as he might, Kevin just could not bring up an image. It was like his mind were being blocked where his body had no problem remembering.

Shrugging, he poured water into the cistern and punched the button to brew. 

Objectively, Kevin realized he felt content. Which, going by his standards, equivalated to _an incredibly good mood_. He felt rested, he felt calm, and he had yet to hear the term “cockslut” hissed into his ear. He usually heard it at least twice before noon on weekdays.

Maybe the demon had really gone away again. 

The last handful of weeks had been the most intense Kevin had ever experienced-- _‘It could be possible,’_ he thought. A thin, weak little glimmer of hope edged itself around the sides of that idea, even if it didn’t fit too well.

Walking away from the groaning coffeemaker, he cocked his head and rolled his shoulder in a stretch, but immediately winced. The collar of his shirt had ridden up and brushed against the skin of his throat, and his skin… felt _weird_.

Kevin frowned, tensing to freeze still in the middle of the motion. 

Hesitant (as though afraid), he held his head steady while slowly dropping his shoulder back down, raising two fingers to delicately probe at the skin of his neck.

The touch is electric. Fire ignites instantly across his nerves, shooting heat through his limbs and puddling like liquid joy in his groin.

His fingers flatten against his neck on reflex, and the firmer sensation is mind-blowing. A sharp, startled cry tumbles from his mouth, leaving on a breath that feels almost as good as the pleasure that had him make it. 

Kevin finds himself having to grip the wall for support as his knees suddenly turn to jelly, his cock hard in his shorts. 

_‘Oh my god,’_ he thinks. _‘That’s… that’s new.’_

His neck has _never_ been this sensitive. All he’d done was _touch it--_

He blinks, rapidly a few times, as his mind manages to catch up with the temporary overwhelm. It’s with a growing suspicion (and begrudging good-sense) that Kevin manages to pull his hand away from the clearly hyper-sensitive, newborn erogenous zone of his neck.

Before he can question himself (or give in to the greedy instinct to stop thinking and _just touch that spot again)_ Kevin’s crossing his bedroom to the tiny adjacent bathroom, flicking on the light and leaning in close to the little mirror.

He looked the same, for the most part: Indoor-pale, dark circles swooping beneath his bluish eyes having long become permanent, and no cause for alarm. Face a little on the thin side. The same short “I cut it myself because I hallucinate if I ever leave the house” dirty blonde hair he’s always had. No changes there.

But the _terrifyingly impressive_ bouquet of red-and-purple bruises splashed over the whole left side of his neck-- that was certainly a big one.

Kevin stared at his reflection. He gripped the sides of the sink. The muscles in his arms bunched.

 _Bruises_ \-- Were they from what happened in the living room? 

He shook his head; that didn’t sound right. If they were from the… his _fit_ , yesterday, then they should be finger-shaped on at least both sides, and the majority should be over his windpipe, in the front. The unseen beast that dogged him typically liked to cease its equally spontaneous actions without a moment’s notice, and then pretend Kevin that was upset about nothing. It rarely left marks-- Marks would validate Kevin’s angst or his discomfort with the demon’s treatment. Any contusions, or injuries of any kind gotten during an “episode” were from Kevin’s own doing, or product of hitting furniture.

If the demon had intended to leave bruises yesterday, Kevin knew they wouldn’t look like _this_. Not like these splotched, overlapped blooming rings spread up and down the one side, like massive goddamned _hickeys--_

His gut seemed to make a leadened drop from his ribs as his lungs painfully decompressed on a rattling exhale. Kevin’s hands tightened around the lip of the sink basin.

 _Love bites._

Those were-- His neck was covered in love bites. And he had absolutely no memory of getting them.

Panic washed hot-and-cold below his skin, which itself had taken on a fearful tremble.

He didn’t remember _anything_. He’s sure he slept through the night. The bars on his bedroom window were still in place, everything in his apartment had seemed untouched; nothing could have possibly happened. Even the demon was gone--

Kevin watched in the mirror as the apple of his throat bobbed as he made a hard swallow; the cartilage shifting under an irregular bruise’s edge.

_But he’d slept through the night._

He stared for another moment, eyes flicking warily between the sight of his neck and anywhere else. With timid fingertips, Kevin pressed gently against the largest and darkest of the bruises, just barely grazing the florid skin. 

But the contact seems to magnetize his fingers to his neck; the slight probe immediately firming into flat, pushing contact as that same, unfamiliar electric heat from before in the kitchen lit up all of his nerves at once. Kevin’s knees buckled as his legs shook-- he leaned against the sink and his other hand gripped the lacquered steel like a vise.

The broken, needy wail that came from Kevin’s mouth and spread loud in the little bathroom didn’t even sound like himself. The unadulterated joy on the pink-cheeked, slacked expression he saw in the mirror was so unfettered-- so _foreign_ \--that part of him didn’t even recognize his own face.

 _‘Hickeys aren't supposed to feel like this,’_ he thought wildly. Kevin bent forward to the counter, onto the elbow of the arm that was now rhythmically rubbing over the left of his neck, pulling his abdomen back from the lip of sink to let his other hand reach and palm himself through his shorts. 

_God._ He was… He was _ridiculously_ turned on. Like something was forcing his body to make up for the past months of his lackluster sex-drive. Almost mindlessly, Kevin plunged his fingers through the cotton slit of his underwear, working loose the button in the middle and curling his fingers around his aching cock. 

A connection between his uncommonly responsive flesh and the blank of his forgotten dream seemed to click together in the middle of that first desperate stroke upwards. The innocuous quiet of prior nothingness explodes with sudden memory, color and sensation as vivid as hallucination, and--

_Kevin blinks. He’s standing in his living room._

_At least, it looks like his living room. Sort of. He glances around. Same size, same shape as his-- but everything is **nicer**. Obviously nicer; there are no marks on the walls, no stains on the sofa, no scuffs on the hardwood… Everything gleams. Like a better, higher-classed replica of his apartment. _

_There’s no discomfort at this knowledge; in fact, Kevin feels cozy. Unbothered. He doesn’t feel ownership to this place-- but he feels like he belongs._

_“Come here.”_

_He turns his head. Instead of wide, wasted space before the kitchenette sits a plush armchair; a stationary, carved monstrosity, clearly the most opulent thing in the room. It looks something like a throne. Sitting in it is a man so handsome Kevin can’t do anything but stare._

_The man raises a hand and gestures for Kevin to move. Kevin does._

_He walks forward and stop in the ‘V’ of the man’s parted knees. The man is even more attractive up close; strong, Alpine features, like a Renaissance painting of a Greek hero. Angelic._

_It is only when the man’s palms sweep up Kevin’s back does Kevin even realize that he’s naked. The man in the armchair, meanwhile, is completely dressed. But this doesn’t bother Kevin, either._

_Something in the way that the man is looking up at him, unsmiling but clearly pleased, feels absolutely familiar in a strange, absent sort of way to Kevin. It’s a comfort._

_He knows him-- somehow knows that this man knows Kevin better than Kevin, himself._

_Kevin smiles. “Hi.”_

_The man’s mouth splits into a charming, beatific kind of grin. “Hello,” he says. His hands are still warm on Kevin’s back when they pull forward. “Come here.”_

_Kevin’s body seems to know exactly what to do as it climbs into the handsome man’s lap; knees and shins going to bracket the man’s thighs, hands going to the man’s shoulders. The man’s hands stay on Kevin, moving down to circle his thumbs on Kevin’s hipbones as the smaller male settles on his lap._

_A stray idea suddenly births half-formed and convoluted in Kevin’s head, bringing with it an unwelcome emotion of mild suspicion. The negativity stabs through his calm, intimate headspace like a shot, and Kevin’s eyebrows furrow. He blinks, stares harder at the handsome man. “…Do I even know you?”_

_“That’s not important,” The man tells smoothly, brushing some of Kevin’s hair back from his face as his other hand pets Kevin’s lower back._

_“That’s not important,” Kevin echoes. The suspicion he felt fades altogether with the last syllable, as the words form and leave his mouth. The comfortable feeling of trust returns. Kevin mimics the handsome man’s action and combs his fingers through the other’s dark hair._

_“ **I** know you,” The man states._

_“Okay.” Something about that feels right, to Kevin._

_The hand in Kevin’s hair goes to the back of his neck as he’s pulled closer and Kevin’s lips are moved with the man’s own. The little part of him that has remained stunned by how contented he feels-- unclothed, unconcerned, in the lap of a man he’s not sure that he knows --is the same which notes: This is Kevin’s first kiss. At least, it should be. The way that Kevin’s hands come up to hold the other man’s face, the way that he knows to coax open the other’s mouth with the tip of his tongue, all suggest an established intimacy._

_He can’t remember kissing this man before; can’t remember kissing **anyone** , before, but in the sweetness of being held, being touched-- of being around another person at all --Kevin finds nothing cause for alarm._

_When one of the handsome man’s hands goes around to cup along Kevin’s hip, a supporting gesture, and the other dips knowing fingertips in between his cheeks, Kevin just sighs into the man’s mouth._

_“Good boy.”_

_The man’s index crooks inside Kevin with ease, gliding over and past his rim with no effort. His mouth gnaws mildly on Kevin’s lower lip; his cupped hand spreading, kneading against the firm flesh of Kevin’s backside._

_“Good boy,” The man repeats, breathing the praise down Kevin’s jaw and neck. “Very good.” He hums appreciatively against Kevin’s throat when two more of his fingers manage to fit alongside the first with that same smooth glide; the hum turning into a laugh when he feels Kevin’s inner muscles squeeze against his knuckles._

_Kevin unconsciously moves his hips forward to roll the cradle of his pelvis wider, rocking against the fingertips inside him; and his head drops back and over, exposing more of the left of his neck to the man’s burning, nipping mouth without being asked._

_He’s starting to go breathless-- Kevin’s hole feels wide, unnaturally stretched; there’s an unfamiliar liquid sensation squishing with the shallow, lazy thrusts of the man’s fingers that he’s never felt before. A vague reminder-thought of “preparation” passes in his mind, and brings with it another wave of calm._

_But blood is rushing down, pooling, making his thoughts go woolly as the man’s touch makes his spine arch; makes his skin quiver all over. Kevin’s mouth has long dropped open, letting loose little whines._

_A humid, breathy pant turns into a blend between a scream and a sigh when the man’s fingers find something absolutely **amazing** inside him, the same moment that the man’s mouth sucks hard over Kevin’s neck, stinging slightly with the feel of teeth. The bite is laved kindly with a hot tongue. It’s the same apology given for subsequent marks, a scattering of pinpricked reds and purples that are like direct lines to Kevin’s arousal. There’s nothing faked or exaggerated about the moan that comes out of Kevin’s mouth._

_There’s a shifting and Kevin’s raised up a bit to tense his thighs, holding himself in a hover above the man’s lap; groaning at the emptiness when the man’s fingers are pulled from his hole. He shifts his feet up to help with the pose; he’s almost squatting._

_But then the man flattens a hand across Kevin’s lower back and guides Kevin downwards. Something much bigger than the man’s fingers prods at Kevin’s loosened rim-- ‘His cock,’ Kevin manages to think --before pressing upwards, into Kevin._

_He pants again; he’s loud, he can’t help it. The hand on Kevin’s back and now on his hip guide him lower, slowly but surely, until the man is bottoming out in Kevin’s ass. Without prompting, Kevin lifts himself short and presses down, clenching on the base. The sensation makes him tense and twitch his hips forward, his own cock standing red and ignored between them._

_Kevin’s eyes are squeezed shut, hands reflexively tightening again and again on the man’s shoulders. Kevin bounces himself, whimpers:_

_“So good.”_

_The man pulls Kevin close, the fabric of his suit catching on the soft, sensitive skin of Kevin’s cock and making him hiss. The man kisses at the velvet slope of skin where the underside of Kevin’s jaw meets the column of his throat, trails his lips back to the side he was mouthing, and snakes a hand between to rock a thumbpad over Kevin’s cockhead, pearling with precome._

_The dual sensation of the man’s hand on his length and the easy pace Kevin’s setting-- up, down, up, down --has the man’s cock brushing over his nerves every few thrusts, and it’s already too much; Kevin’s astoundingly close._

_The man’s mouth is full on sucking at Kevin’s neck, pumping a fist tight along Kevin’s cock in time with how his tongue presses into hypersensitive bruises being drawn from within Kevin’s flesh._

_Kevin pulls himself up again, circling his hips on instinct and rubbing that fantastic, incredible point of sensation over the hot pressure of the man’s cock until he can’t take it anymore--_

Kevin snaps back into his body just as his orgasm hits; an instant, blinding burst of pleasure that robs the air from his lungs and sends him dropping to the floor as his legs give out. His cheek is leaned on the cool porcelain of the wall as he drifts, his body practically singing with buoyant pleasure.

As he comes down-- heart no longer a throbbing hammer in his ears, breaths evening back out as the afterglow fades --Kevin blinks a bit, brushing back his damp bangs as he listens. Outside of the air pulling into his nose, the apartment sounds just as quiet as it had been when Kevin woke up.

He turns his attentions inward, again, just barely brushing back over the recent memory of the dream, but the mental space around it is… It’s quiet, too. There’s only Kevin inside Kevin’s head. Nothing else. No one else. 

It is profoundly disturbing how jagged the returning acknowledgment of his solitude stabs into Kevin. 

The warm, human intimacy of his dream seems to linger as a ghostly taunt along his skin, making the surface feel crawled and itching. It hadn’t been real-- it hadn’t --but the vividness of sensation had been more than Kevin had felt in years. It had felt like, like finally finding something to fill that “god-shaped hole” he had inside him; the one that had yawned wide with the demon’s arrival, and had been echoing awfully ever since. The hole where affirmation, where _affection_ had once lived. 

Something sounds _terrible_ \-- a wrecked, wet kind of noise is slapping against the tiles of the bathroom and the sound of it makes Kevin’s gut roll a little. When his chest starts to heave, and his throat pains with a raw burn, Kevin realizes the sounds are coming from him.

He’s crying. No, not crying-- _sobbing;_ unhinged gasps and howls leave him as though forced. 

This was what he was reduced to. This isolated, unbalanced _freak_ who’d become so touch-starved and lonely that one random dream of pedestrian intimacy taxes his body to the point of hysteria. 

Kevin curls forward, holding his head as he weeps.

There’s something wrong with him. He _knows_ there is. He’d been avoiding it, ignoring it; Kevin had figured, if he kept the… the thing inside his head something like ‘happy’, then he would be alright. But that had meant leaving his family, his faith, leaving his whole life. It had meant leaving other people behind. The demon had been very specific about how it had wanted Kevin-- alone, unattached. 

And starving for someone to touch him with kindness, to want to touch him; to _want_ him despite his damned soul, his sick brain, whichever was guilty of forming the sad creature he knew himself to be.

Now it seemed, the very reason that Kevin had cut himself off from the rest of the world, had… had apparently _left him_. Left Kevin with whatever ruined mess it had made of his psyche. 

Maybe it had succeeded; maybe it had finally taken his soul. Maybe that’s why it had left. Kevin never did finish the prayer. He’d given in to the demon-- It had been small, but he had given in.

 _‘It might come back,’_ a part of him thinks frantically. _‘It might come back. It always did in the past.’_

Kevin was too upset to think, to analyze what he was suddenly hoping for with every fiber of his being. 

He just didn’t want to be alone.

 

.


End file.
